Brio Leadership

Forgiveness is a Team Sport

July 7, 2008 | Leave a Comment

forgiveness picture We do not often think of forgiveness as having anything to do with the workplace, but surprisingly, forgiveness is an essential practice of a highly effective work team. Thanks to recent psychological and medical research, we know that the act of forgiveness has many benefits to the individual. “People who are taught to forgive become less angry, more hopeful, less depressed, less anxious, less stressed, more confident, and they learn to like themselves more.”1 What manager would NOT want people who are less angry, more hopeful, less depressed, etc. on their team? For a team, the benefits of forgiveness can be multiplied by the number of people who work together. An atmosphere of forgiveness will improve the teamwork, productivity, spiritual integrity and creativity of a workgroup. When practiced by a whole division or company, forgiveness can mean increased profitability.

What do we mean by forgiveness?  Forgiveness is a process that we choose to take after we are wronged or hurt by another person. It does not happen automatically. Forgiveness takes a conscious effort - often, the amount of work needed to forgive is proportional to our perception of the gravity of the hurt. Forgiveness is a way to let go of the past so it doesn’t imprison you. We already know it is good for your health and good for your peace of mind. Lastly, forgiveness is a spiritual practice that we can use in the workplace. For step-by-step instructions on a personal forgiveness process, please visit a previous post called Seven Steps to Forgiveness.

To create an environment of forgiveness, a leader must start by establishing and communicating a purpose that is greater than just increased revenues or reduced costs. A compelling purpose for a team might highlight benefits to the customer and reference some of the higher values of customers and employees. For example, Mary Kay Corporation’s mission/purpose statement is “to enrich the lives of women”. The leader of a team that practices forgiveness will be quick to spot conflict among members, and will coach the disputing parties to 1) air their grievances in a calm manner 2) look for the unmet needs of both parties and 3) look for mutually beneficial resolutions to the grievance - before the grievance has a chance to fester and gather emotional energy. A good leader will model forgiveness by personally following those steps toward resolution of a grievance.  A good leader will create an atmosphere in which both personal and team failures are seen as learning opportunities rather than causes for recrimination.

What happens when a team does not practice forgiveness? Unresolved grudges build up resentment to levels much higher than the seriousness of the original grievance. People stop talking to each other. Opposing camps are formed, and often if one person is seen talking to a person of the “other camp” they are labeled traitors. A colleague recently described such an atmosphere at her workplace. “It’s gotten to the point that I don’t want to go to work anymore,” she lamented. “I try to be nice to everyone, but sometimes I’ll try to talk to a person from the other camp, and he completely ignores me.  He might refuse to perform job duties that are clearly expected of him just because he is working next to me.” An unforgiving workplace is toxic, stressful, ineffective and non-productive. Absenteeism, health care costs and attrition all rise in an unforgiving environment - at great expense to the employer.

As leaders, it is our spiritual imperative to build forgiving organizations. A spiritually intelligent team is a team that learns to forgive. How can you contribute to the forgiveness quotient of your workplace?

1 Dr. Fred Luskin, Forgive for Good: A Proven Prescription for Health and Happiness, page 78.


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Releasing Judgmental Thoughts

June 26, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Can you think of a colleague, co-worker or acquaintance who really annoys you, but is probably a pretty agreeable person underneath their irritating qualities?  Stated another way, are there people who make you bristle because of a certain aspect of their personality, but if you consider them with an open heart, you could find quite a few redeeming qualities?  I can say yes to both of these questions, so I assume that you can, too.

Psychologists tell us that the qualities in others that most irritate us are the qualities that we fear in ourselves. If it weren’t so, then the other person’s behavior wouldn’t bother us and we wouldn’t even notice it. For example, I mentally label loud and talkative people as rude or braggadocio.  But, if I am really honest with myself, I have a tendency - or perhaps it is an internal wish - to be loud, talkative and braggy. However, if I weren’t somehow conflicted over that tendency, it probably wouldn’t annoy me so much when I encounter loud and talkative people.

What happens when we unmindfully hold onto judgmental thoughts about others? Those feelings can grow from a mere irritation to a huge iceberg of resentment, jeopardizing your working relationship with that person and sometimes poisoning the team’s spirit if the person is a co-worker. Because negative emotions create stress in our minds and bodies, holding onto a judgment or a resentment hurts us - it is a self-inflicted wound. To recognize and release a judgment allows us to lighten our load of destructive emotions.  We do it for ourselves.

There are some steps we can take to stop our judgments of other people:

  1. Make an inventory of past triggers.The first thing we can do is take a mental inventory of the people and their qualities who have angered, annoyed or irritated us in the past. This prepares us with a list of traits that has triggered our reactions in the past and helps us recognize them as we experience them in the future.
  2. Notice when you label or judge someone. We need to train ourselves to become aware of our judgments, which fortunately becomes easier with practice. Mentally scanning the body for emotions occasionally during the day can help us identify a judgmental feeling, which usually lodges in our solar plexus or lower in the abdomen. As soon as possible, notice when you judge or label something or someone - before the judgment turns into a resentment.
  3. Stop. Interrupt your run-away thoughts, emotions and judgments. Breathe, imagining that you are breathing through your heart space. Five breaths will open your heart space and neutralize your cascading judgmental thoughts. 
  4. Gain perspective. View the person or event from a neutral or different point of view. You might attempt to perceive the situation from the viewpoint of an unconditionally loving mother, saying to yourself, “Surely this person’s mother loves her.” Or you might perceive the situation from the perspective of a disinterested third party.  What might a person who has no emotional investment in the situation observe or think? Lastly, consider the situation from the soul perspective, opening your heart and your spirit to the essential goodness in the other person and the ultimate perfection of the situation. This is where miracles happen.
  5. Thank the person at a soul level. There are no coincidences. This person or situation has appeared in your life for a reason, perhaps as an opportunity to learn a life lesson. The other person’s soul agreed to engage in this encounter for your benefit, or for the benefit of both souls. On some unseen level, there is perfection in the situation. Gratitude is an appropriate response. Thank the other person. Or you can use a phrase common in the southern region of the US, and mentally say with deepest sincerity, “Bless your heart.”

Recently, I noticed myself judging someone in a business meeting. Fortunately, I caught myself before I got too deep in my judgmental interpretation of the behavior that I found irritating. Taking a deep breath, I found myself thinking of how her mother must love her. I found that amusing but helpful. Then, in my spirit, I miraculously caught a glimpse of her soul. That sudden shift in perspective surprised me and I smiled to myself. All of this happened in a split second, so rest assured that I didn’t zone out of the meeting for more than a couple of words! Only later did I remember to thank her soul, but when I did, I immediately felt a shift in energy between us.

I am grateful for the opportunity to develop my awareness and learn from my experiences. As always, my hope is that, by sharing my journey, your journey will be enhanced.


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Posted by admin | Filed Under Forgiveness, Mindfulness, Work, blog 

Spiritual Practice Breaks are OK

June 1, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Lapses in our spiritual practice cannot be cause for beating ourselves up. If we wish to practice forgiveness in our lives, it has to start on the inside by allowing ourselves to take sabbaticals every now and then from even our most cherished practices. An attitude of acceptance is the best approach - “it is what it is” is a good affirmation. Self-acceptance is spiritual maturity.

I speak from my heart today, as I realized this morning as I was journaling that it has been many days since I have written and meditated. I hadn’t journaled since Tuesday - and today is Sunday, so you can count the days yourself. I am sorry for my lapse because I promised to you several months ago in this blog that I was committing to a daily practice. But I am proud to look back over the week and appreciate what I’ve done instead. I’m really grateful for this break in my routine, because it has produced such richness. I give myself permission to take a short break from my mediation and journaling practice. And, I am glad to come back to it now.

The week has been one of discovery and learning for me. I attended a three-day train-the-trainer class to learn about CoreClarity’s approach to training people to recognize and play to their strengths, rather than fixing their weaknesses. This positive approach to team-building and individual productivity was transformational for me, and I know it will be transformational for the organizations that I hope to bring it to. The training was exciting but it was also exhausting because of the deep inner work that we did. Plus, it was an hour or more commute each way to the class for me.

But, an amazing result came out of those long commutes - I created a dream for where I wanted to be in five years. I was inspired by my business coach who invited me to her birthday party last week. I couldn’t attend because I was out-of-town on business. What she invited her friends to was not a “come as you are” party, but a “come as you will be… in 2013″ party. Come as you will be in five years - now that’s a fascinating challenge! As I battled rush hour traffic this week, I turned off the radio and mentally envisioned where I would like to be, what I would like to be doing, and what my life is going to look like in five years. I have captured my dream in my journal, and I hope to make a story-board (a visual depiction) of my dream also. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I look back now and am happy that the space in my practice allowed me to do this inner work.

We must give ourselves permission to take breaks from our spiritual practices. We can just notice them, just as we notice our thoughts come and go during meditation. The trick is in getting back into the practices. In meditation, we notice the thoughts and let them go - and then direct our minds back to the breath. We must direct our lives back to our practice in the same non-judgmental way.

That is what self-forgiveness is all about.


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Posted by krisrob02 | Filed Under Forgiveness, Loving Yourself, Meditation, Newest Posts, blog 

Be your own BFF - Best Friends Forever

April 24, 2008 | Leave a Comment

BFF - that’s the text messaging acronym for "best friends forever." Today is the day to have a conversation with yourself and ask, "Will you be my BFF?" Best friends are there to love you, encourage you, forgive you and be your cheerleader - no matter what.  That is what you deserve to receive from yourself - unconditional love of self, forever. Self-love is the foundation of inner peace, and inner peace is the pre-requisite to world peace.  We must learn to love ourselves unconditionally before we can create true peace in our outer world.

At last Saturday’s Forgiveness Workshop at Pathways Church, we wrote forgiveness letters to ourselves.  I instructed the participants to write letters that acknowledged their feelings and unmet needs in their forgiveness opportunity, and to forgive themselves for their part in the story. As facilitator, I gathered up the letters to mail and blessed each envelope - and its recipient - before sending it down the mail chute at the post office.  I’ve mailed notes to myself in the past, and I remember how sweet it was to receive it. I suppose an e-card to yourself would do in a pinch! That’s one way to be your own BFF - write yourself an appreciative or forgiving letter.

Another is to record your successes in your journal.  My business coach, Dr. Jayne Gardner, calls this "counting your wins".  Record both your internal shifts in perspective (your "inner wins") and your worldly successes (your "outer wins").  Two amazing things happen when you record your successes.  First, you begin to really appreciate yourself as you notice your own successes, both small and large.  Second, successes seem to multiply when you are looking for them. It’s almost as if you set your intention to have successes in order to record them in your journal, and so you have them.  Recording your successes is another way to be your own best friend.  Today, I re-read my journal entries for the last four months and marveled at all the successes I wrote about.  I’m proud of myself for recognizing them and for recording them. (There - I just appreciated myself!  BFF!)

A third way to be your own BFF is to teach yourself some perspective.  Our inner critic is swift to berate ourselves for any imperfection we might notice in ourselves.  If you are your own best friend, you will talk back to your inner critic and say, "In six months (or six years, or at the end of my life), am I even going to remember this incident?"  If the answer is no (and almost all the time it is), tell your critic to take a hike.  A friend says that he gives himself a day to feel bad about something, but the next morning, he wakes up with self-forgiveness in his heart.  That’s being your own best friend - silencing your inner critic with perspective and self-forgiveness.

Sometimes I think it is easier for us to accept God’s unconditional love than it is to accept our own unconditional love. We get sucked into thinking that the Divine is more loving, more powerful, more wonderful than we are so we can mentally understand that loving me is easy for God.  However, if we carry the Divine spark within us, we can and must love ourselves.  Loving ourselves is the path to peace.

So, look yourself in the mirror today and ask that gorgeous face of yours, "Will you be my BFF?"


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Seven Steps to Forgiveness

February 5, 2008 | 1 Comment

Forgiveness is good for you.  The process of forgiveness has been shown to have both psychological and physical benefits to the person who is doing the forgiving. Shocking, isn’t it?  You may have heard the old axiom, “Holding a grudge is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.”  Now, thanks to recent research conducted by venerable psychologists, there is clinical proof that non-forgiveness is bad for you. Dr. Fred Luskin, in his book called Forgive for Good: A Proven Prescription for Health and Happiness notes that the results of his and other scientific studies show that “People who are taught to forgive become less angry, more hopeful, less depressed, less anxious, less stressed, more confident, and they learn to like themselves more.” (p. 78)

Would you like to have less anger, depression and stress in your life?  Would you like to be more confident and like yourself more?  Forgiveness is an answer.

Although I admire many of Dr. Luskin’s techniques for teaching forgiveness, I’d like to offer my own “Seven Steps to Forgiveness” in a nutshell in this blog.  Perhaps I’ll have an opportunity to expand on some of the steps in future blogs.  You let me know if you want to hear more!

Some preliminary words: Forgiveness is a process, not an event.  If something or someone has deeply hurt you, you may find it difficult to forgive quickly – although it is possible, and to be able to forgive immediately is my personal goal.  Believe me, I am not there yet. You may not even be aware of people or situations that you need to forgive, but their memories may be festering in your cellular tissue, unconsciously depleting your energy and vitality.  As you become aware of these issues, practice these steps to lighten your energetic load, clear your heart and live more peacefully, knowing that forgiveness will happen on your own individual time table.

Also, this technique is what works for me today.  I reserve the right to amend and change this approach as I learn more!  As mentioned before, I intend to get to a point of grace in which I can forgive people and events as they happen. But I know I am not there yet.

Step One: Identify exactly how you feel.  Write extensively and expressively about the situation/person/event, sharing your deepest thoughts, emotions and needs. Many spiritual teachers understand the power of writing - it wrests your feelings from the more primitive emotional brain and allows the analytical brain a chance to examine the subject. Both my husband and I keep a journal because it helps rid the psyche of negative emotions.  Write until you feel you can write no more.

Step Two: Talk to a trusted friend, partner or advisor about this subject.  This is an important step to help you fully identify and acknowledge the emotions, but also to get another person’s perspective on the situation.

Step Three: Consider and write about the situation from the other person’s point of view.  What might they have felt?  What was going on in their life behind the scenes, as it were? What were their needs? What did you do to contribute to the situation?  In my experience, this is a difficult but transformational step.

Step Four: Consider and write about the situation in the third person, as if you are a newspaper journalist writing about it.  Include only the discernable facts about the event, only what a neutral third party would have observed if they had been there.  This step helps to build perspective.

Step Five: Construct a forgiveness letter to the person who aggrieved you, acknowledging the emotions that person might have felt, their needs and what elements of their background might explain their actions.  You do not need to send this letter or talk to the person in order to benefit from this step. 

Additionally in this step, consider how you can move from being a victim in this situation to the hero.  Forgiving is certainly heroic.  In what other ways can you write yourself as the hero/heroine?

Step Six: Decide what actions you will take, whether it is legal action or a conversation with the other person. Remember, forgiveness is not the same as condoning, and there are times in which legal action is needed.  However, legal action taken in the spirit of forgiveness will be much less stressful for you than otherwise.  Your energy will be clear.

Step Seven:  Your brain has been trained to tell your grievance story about this situation every time you think about it or the other person.  You need to re-train your brain to rest in forgiveness, you need to stop your negative, blaming or self-blaming thoughts in their tracks. Catch yourself immediately upon thinking of the grievance, take a deep breath (see my blog on breathing, http://kristinrobertson.com/breathing-to-relax.htm) and bless the other person and yourself. In this manner you will re-pave the neural pathways in your brain so your habitual thoughts won’t do the blame game like a CD on repeat.

In addition, you may need to meditate on forgiving the other person (see one of my several blog posts on forgiveness at http://kristinrobertson.com/forgiveness-redux.htm).

Prayer:

Holy One, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.  Amen.


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Forgiveness Redux

January 5, 2008 | Leave a Comment

For me, the act of forgiving is like peeling an onion – there are many layers to uncover.  In my last post to the Brio Leadership blog, I shared a spontaneous meditation that shifted the tectonic plates of my soul and allowed me to go deeper in forgiving the past. It’s been wonderful to walk with a lighter load the past few days – I highly recommend forgiveness work to you!

In today’s post, I’d like to share a forgiveness prayer and meditation that I’ve used for years.  It was given to me by my friend Susan R., and I do not know the originator of the prayer.  If you do, please let me know.  I would like to attribute it to its rightful owner.

Start by sitting comfortably, erect and relaxed, feet on the ground.  Start with a mindfulness meditation, such as following the breath or intently observing a lighted candle.  When you feel you’ve reached a state of quiet attentiveness, imagine that the person that you wish to forgive is sitting across from you.  You look into each other eyes.  Stay with the image until you can see the person clearly in your mind’s eye.  Then work through the following prayer. Slowly say each line to yourself, letting the sentence’s meaning permeate your being.  Take several breaths before advancing to the next line.

Forgiveness Prayer:

May I be at peace.

May my heart remain open.

May I awaken to the light of my own true nature.

May I be healed.

May I be a source of healing for all beings.

May you be at peace.

May your heart remain open.

May you awaken to the light of your own true nature.

May you be healed.

May you be a source of healing to all beings.

May we be at peace.

May our hearts remain open.

May we awaken to the light of our own true natures.

May we be healed.

May we be a source of healing to all beings.

Amen.


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Forgiveness

January 4, 2008 | 4 Comments

Last night I saw an online video of a woman who described the wondrous things that manifested in her life once she forgave the man who killed her daughter.  She said she worked hard to forgive – it took her several days.  I start screaming at the screen, “Several days!  Honey, you think that’s bad?  It’s taken me years to forgive several people in my life, and months to forgive others! And none of these people killed anyone! How can you say you worked hard and it took only several days?” 

I calmed down and realized that we each have different time tables for forgiveness and we each have varying spiritual paths to forgiveness.  I emphasize the need for forgiveness in my life – and in your life - because I know that holding grudges is a burden that I carry, not anyone else.  Lack of forgiveness imprisons my heart. I recently read that Nelson Mandela, after being held captive in South Africa for 27 years, forgave his captors.  His words: “We especially should learn to forgive each other because when you intend to forgive, you heal part of the pain, but when you forgive you heal completely.” (Mandela’s Speech on February 11,1990).
I believe that timing is everything in forgiveness.  You can try all the forgiveness prayers, you can meditate until your knees bleed, you can journal your heart out - all of these help you peel away the layers of anger and resentment. However, sometimes total forgiveness is elusive, at least for me.  I find I’m still carrying a thread of attachment to that anger, even after all my worthy pursuits. I realized I was in that situation last night when I heard that remarkable story of forgiving a daughter’s killer in a few days.
So, I decided it was time to let go and forgive several people toward whom I’ve been carrying around resentment.  If that woman who lost her daughter could forgive the killer, surely I could forgive someone whose transgressions were merely my interpretation of events.  I was giving myself tough love and eating humble pie!
I’ve been studying the concepts of Nonviolent Communication this week.  This approach to conflict resolution and communication teaches you to identify and acknowledge the emotions and needs of both parties.  I used some of those concepts in my meditation.

So, in the hopes that this might help you someday, I share my meditation:
I lit a candle and sat on my mediation bench.  I practiced mindful breathing for several minutes, observing the in-breath and the out-breath, becoming aware of my heartbeat, straightening my back, loosening my stomach muscles.  When I finally remembered to smile, I knew I was ready to do my visualization.  I asked my higher power and spirit guides to help me, and I started.
First, I imagined all the needs of the other person.  I mentally spoke to that person and acknowledged each imagined need individually, saying that I understood how it was important.  I then thought of all my needs in the situation. Because I was totally honest with myself, the list of my needs surprised me, and I had a revelation. I acknowledged each one, saying that I understood how it was important.  I said to the other person, “I let you go. I forgive you. My heart is now open to you.”

Then I did some mental deep cleaning of my heart. I opened the door to my heart and invited all the dark feelings to come out.  In a whoosh, some feelings flew out as if liberated for the first time, but others dribbled over the threshold and dripped down my chest. Yuck! I took a broom and start sweeping out my heart.  The un-forgiveness in my heart had turned to black sticky gunk that was affixed to the walls and corners of my heart! The sweeping only got the loose stuff out.  I then took a powerful vacuum to my heart, and I vacuumed all the walls and corners of my heart.  Standing back to inspect, I still saw brown goo ingrained in the wood of the walls, so I took a spiritual power washer that sprayed hot, pressurized soapy water, and I sprayed the heck out of the whole mess inside my heart.  After the steam evaporated, I couldn’t believe what I saw – the walls of my heart were marble, not wood, and they were radiating a pure white light!
I knew I’d done good work.  I checked with my spirit guide and asked her to bless the people I’d forgiven.  I asked her to deliver a message to the other persons’ spirit guides that all is OK.  She blessed me and told me she was proud of me.  I opened my eyes, blew out the candle and went to bed.


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